Your best and worst customer service experiences [rant & praise]

norrie rugger

An old one that I posted a few months back in the Tech section

norrie rugger wrote: »

Hi guys,

Recently my Toshiba 42x3030d developed a pencil line, bang down the centre of the screen. Very annoying


Anyway, it was out of warranty but I phoned Toshiba. Guy gave a preprogrammed responce about warrenty, I bluffed a few lines about European expectations on electrical goods and got patched through to a very helpful woman, in customer relations.

Anyway, they are going to swap my 42x for the 42Z FOC.

I am far from complaining, just wondering how good this TV is. Not seen many reviews


NR


PS: also resetting the warranty, so collection of new TV starts it all over again

the TV was also originally "Graded B Stock" and Toshiba did not care
The responce was "We sold it to you, it should have been factory standard, so we will fix this"

Kensington

Rang today to get name changed on the upc account since I'm not paying the bill.
Seemingly, you can't change the name on an account, instead you have to cancel that account competely and open a seperate new account, with a new account number. Anyway, that aside...

Went ahead and cancelled the account. Opened up account in new name and told my cablemodem equipment would be transferred over and I'd encounter a brief interruption during the process. Was assured I'd receive a phone call once done.

That was at 10am this morning.

I'm now sitting here at home, 12 hours later, unable to dial out on my upc phone and my internet working intermittently. Haven't received one single phone call from upc and their accounts department is now closed.

Incompetence isn't a strong enough word...

eightyfish

Kensington wrote: »

Haven't received one single phone call from upc

Don't hold your breath. They never, ever, ever, ever call anyone back. And they are 100% guaranteed to f*uk up everything you ask them to do, no matter how simple.

eth0_

Kensington wrote: »

Rang today to get name changed on the upc account since I'm not paying the bill.
Seemingly, you can't change the name on an account, instead you have to cancel that account competely and open a seperate new account, with a new account number. Anyway, that aside...

Oh no. Get this - I moved out of my flat about 3 years ago and a friend of mine moved in. Rang NTL to transfer the TV and cable internet over to him. "We need to come out and disconnect the service and reconnect it, it will take about a week".

They were not joking. Seriously, WTF is wrong with NTL? Is it any wonder their engineers never show up for appointments when they are sent out to disconnect and reconnect cables in manholes?!

Moosh10

Ok I need a rant! FOr years I have put up withthe serious frustration dealing with NTL. Every month without fail there has been an issue.

Eventually I rang today. Was on hold pressing options for about 5 inutes only then to be cut off!

After 15 unsucessful minutes I spoke to some-one totally useless who then put me on hold again.

My fav part was when I got to the resolutions team. Hysterical. Again useless, they have no understanding of how frustrating their whole system is. They ask if they can help but you already know they are much to useless to actually be able to do anything so you say no.

THats me I'm finished with them & good riddence. My blood is seriously boiling & over what..... a tv service provider!!!!!

Pjays

There is a newsagents/stationary shop in Sligo that I went into once to get some bits for college.I had never been in it before and swore never to again. The woman behind the counter was so rude and bad mannered. I felt as if I should have been honoured or something to be in the shop, buying from them. Such an attitude. It maddened me. I never went in again and I told my college mates not to either.

biddy early

Have to warn anyone looking for bargains on electrical appliances to avoid Buy Direct website. They promise delivery within 10 working days, a month later was still waiting for appliances. Every time I rang they blamed the courier company and promised to ring me back. Not once in 2 weeks of phonecalls did I receive a callback!! They are useless. Finally rang the courier company myself to find that the order was never ready when they went to collect. Had to cancel the order in the end as I couldnt handle the constant lies and being fobbed off to the consistently incompetent members of their call centre team.
Better off to go to local electrical store and haggle. Takes a bit of getting used to but definitely better than being treated like an imbecile by a crowd of lying twats at the end of the phone.

FICOCO

Here's a post about the good guys.

I've been to Ennis butchers in Rialto a few times but its a realitvely recent discovery. I was impressed with the produce and the friendly service from my first visit and I really want to shop local given the times we are in. I was delighted to find a really good butcher near my home.

Went to Ennis butchers yesterday and realised when I got home that I forgot the striploin steaks for the dinner. Boo hoo was really looking forward to them! So I drove back. The minute I walked in the door, Derek the butcher recognised me and knew exactly why I was back. He said he even tried to follow me to give them to me after I'd walked out. Anyway, I went to pay for them as I hadn't been charged previously and he gave me the two for a fiver, for the trouble I had in coming back!I was so pleasantly surprised! He didn't need to give me any discount but it was a really nice surprise!

So it's nice to finally report that some Irish businesses know how to look after their customers and keep them coming back!Thanks Derek!

eightyfish

FICOCO wrote: »

I've been to Ennis butchers in Rialto a few times but its a realitvely recent discovery.

Agree, they're brilliant! I moved into the area a year ago and it's great to be able to get some top quality steaks and fish around the corner. They stock Irish cheeses and everything. Love it.

Beanstalk

theres a really good traditional Irish Music show on rte called 'the full set' every friday. I missed an episode with two of my favorite performers recently and, thinking i could watch it on the online catch-up service, was dismayed to find that it wasn't there when I searched for it and the link from the show website wasn't working for me.

I contacted the help team through the player website by leaving a text comment thinking id never hear from them. But they emailed me back within the hour thanking me for my query and the also emailed me a new link!Im delighted with that kind of serivce, so fair play to rte. Right im off to watch the show now....:)

Tim M-U

Sky: great
Eircom: some are great, some are a pain!
Digiweb: your in possition 1 hold! all day

jahalpin

I had a great Customer Service experience with The Counter restaurant in Dundrum a few weeks ago.

I ordered my food and waited for it to brought out, and waited and waited.

After around half an hour the waitress appeared and apologised and said that she had gone on break just after giving my order to the kitchen and there had been a mix up. She brought my meal out and I thought that that was it. When the manager arrived, she also apologised and comped the entire meal for the "inconvenience".

The food was very nice and this combined with the professional manner that the matter was dealt with would definantely make me return to this restaurant again. (The only reason that I haven't been back since is that I haven't actually been to Dundrum since)

The way I see it is that these things can happen and there is no need to get stressed out about it. The staff are doing the best that they can and the last thing they need is a grumpy customer screaming at them over a small mistake which could happen to anyone.

I was so impressed with the Customer Service that I tipped the waitress 5euro on what would have only been a 14euro meal anyway.

henrik51

i never complain,even when i should,is it an irish thing?

Lollipops23

I've has a morning of shoddy service. Bit of background; myself and the mammy are off to croatia today- we realised this morning that it might be an idea to ask our hotel to book us a taxi for arrival at the airport. So we dig out booking forms etc to get the phone number only to find that it is an incorrect number.

Ok, says we, we'll ring the guy we dealt with at Lastminute.com, he'll gave the correct number. Except his number keeps rolling to voicemail (my mother at this point remembered that he also hadn't responded to an email she sent a month ago). So we try the Lastminute.com customer service number. It is out of service.

Getting pretty pissed by now, we decide to call Int Directory Enquiries for the Hotel's number. 1st call to them ended in them acidentally disconecting us, 2nd time they gave us a completely wrong number(after us asking 3 times if it was correct) and FINALLY got it right the 3rd time. Will be asking for a refund for 2 calls.

Got through to the reception of the hotel and we had to talk them into booking a cab for us....they were very reluctant. It's a 4 star hotel, but maybe it's not the done thing in Croatia? Ended up very stressed out, couldn'y believe the incompetance of almost everyone involved.

*glitterball*

Qantas Airline:

Two months ago was returning home from Australia but stopped off in India for a few weeks on my way to Dublin. For various reasons had to change my flights to get home earlier then expected so rang call center in New Dehli. The operator told me a flight had been booked going through Bangkok to London and on to Dublin.

Arrived in Bangkok on agreed date and was told by Qantus staff that that flight didn't exist. Was put on the phone to a call center in Australia where the operator booked a flight leaving from Singapore the next day. Had to pay for extra flights and excess baggage myself and fly to Malaysia. Spent five days travelling to get home instead of two. Still bitter. Would never fly with them again, had so much hassle before that incident even happened.:mad:

Mikespostin

I want to warn people to be careful when dealing with Phelans Shoes. They have a shop in Waterford as well as Ck on Suir. Wife bought boots there last December and when she wore them they were leaking. Went back in but Phelans didnt want to know, refused to consider refund or exchange. They pretended to send boots back to supplier but didnt. Told us that the boots (Reiker) were 'made by the Germans and they are very sticky to deal with' ! Had to pursue through small claims court, they eventually settled just before hearing date. Locals have since told us that they have a terrible reputation with regard to customer service. A real pity as they have a great range but I'm never going back.

steve_oh

The social welfare / social welfare appeals dept. Kept me on hold for TWENTY MINUTES then hung up on me. Rang back and they wouldnt give me the name of the person who had done it. Pig ignorance the like of which I never encountered.

The fat barman who works in Quinns Pub, drumcondra on saturday nights. With his pink shirt. Hate that guy!

Fredsaidright

My worst customer service has to be Carphone warehouse - false information about products, zero customer service when it comes to dealing with any issues you might have with their products, arrogant store managers who it would appear have never been on a training day in their lives and it would seem my experience is not uncommon!

The best customer service I have experienced was the american golf store in tallaght - helpful, knowledgeable staff who were there to give you the information without the hard sell - and i came out spending more than i intended!

MOH

Good

Fredsaidright wrote: »

My worst customer service has to be Carphone warehouse - false information about products, zero customer service when it comes to dealing with any issues you might have with their products, arrogant store managers who it would appear have never been on a training day in their lives and it would seem my experience is not uncommon!

+1
I've been lied repeatedly to in order to try to make a sale, gone back in with printouts from the product website to prove my point and been told CPW are right, the website is wrong.

Seamster07

Hi I am totally :mad::(:eek::mad: with the National Aquatic Centre. I took the kids swimming last week after school because I'm looking for a new gym becuase the one I'm with is crap (have rethought that one - grass is definatley not greener at the NAC).

Paid FULL PRICE for three kids and myself to swim expecting to use all facilities. HUH. Got to the competition pool and there was this huge big 50m pool which in my opinion is crap. The diving pool was being used for lessons so couldn't use that one. The 50m pool had two clubs using it. The weird thing was that there was 1 person in 6 lanes and the other lanes had like 10 kids in it going up and down. So I thought I wouldn't join in the 10 kid lane I'd use the outside lane with my kids even if they only swam up and down for 10m or 25m - 50m is far to far for them.

The "coach" kindly told me to **** off as I couldn't swim with the High Performance Centre. Not the end of the story.

I complained at reception and was told that the National Aquatic Centre is now a High Performance Centre and that's just the way it is. I asked for my money back and was laughed at.

Well I'm not going back again EVER and that's a shame because I have three kids all wanting swimming lessons, not to mention the birthday parties. So when the High Performance Centre's roof blows off again they mustn't complain because they are killing themselves allowing 1 person per lane, I paid 4x to use that lane and got told plainly to get stuffed BUT they did take my money.

Dues Bellator

Seamster07 wrote: »

Hi I am totally :mad::(:eek::mad: with the National Aquatic Centre. I took the kids swimming last week after school because I'm looking for a new gym becuase the one I'm with is crap (have rethought that one - grass is definatley not greener at the NAC).

Paid FULL PRICE for three kids and myself to swim expecting to use all facilities. HUH. Got to the competition pool and there was this huge big 50m pool which in my opinion is crap. The diving pool was being used for lessons so couldn't use that one. The 50m pool had two clubs using it. The weird thing was that there was 1 person in 6 lanes and the other lanes had like 10 kids in it going up and down. So I thought I wouldn't join in the 10 kid lane I'd use the outside lane with my kids even if they only swam up and down for 10m or 25m - 50m is far to far for them.

The "coach" kindly told me to **** off as I couldn't swim with the High Performance Centre. Not the end of the story.

I complained at reception and was told that the National Aquatic Centre is now a High Performance Centre and that's just the way it is. I asked for my money back and was laughed at.

Well I'm not going back again EVER and that's a shame because I have three kids all wanting swimming lessons, not to mention the birthday parties. So when the High Performance Centre's roof blows off again they mustn't complain because they are killing themselves allowing 1 person per lane, I paid 4x to use that lane and got told plainly to get stuffed BUT they did take my money.

hmmmmm a coach trying to teach his pupils how to compete , only to be hampered by mother and kids , maybe you should have asked while you were paying full price what facilities were available me thinks. no wonder were sh*t at olympic swimming in this country .

Seamster07

Hi. That is also something that makes it even more annoying, when I paid the entrance it wasn't like they said "hey you can't swim anywhere" or even gave me a discount for half the centre being a "NO GO" zone.

Spoke to some other mom's at the school about this they've taken kids out of the NAC swim lessons because they got back to lessons this term and all lessons are in the diving pool and the 50m pool has stacks of empty lanes ?. Also heard talk that this High Performance Centre is being sponsored by the government and there is a total of 6 swimmers all swimming for NOTHING ? So not only did I pay to NOT SWIM now my taxes go to paying for 6 kids with no future swimming in the lanes I couldn't even pay to use ???

ciarrai

definately the worst customer service has to be SKY. There are complete morons working in there.
Our bill varies every month, and we don't order any box office...but yet one month its €72 and the next its €94! I have asked at least 4 times now for an explanation, but the ones I get back are just totally confusing!
I know we signed up to sky+ in Jan 09, when it was on special offer, but I really don't know why its up & down every month. I never know how much its going to be each month & have to log onto 'mysky' to check so I have put enough money into our joint account to cover the bill. Also, when I asked if I could have paper bills sent to me so I wouldn't forget to check 'mysky', I was told no, not unless I ordered something off box office...but that I can log into 'mysky' to check...!? Thanks, never thought of that !! lol

Oh and recently very unhappy with O2 business. My father owns 2 businesses and set up a new account for the business which my husband and I run for both our mobiles. I had been on my own personal contract for about 10 years and was due an upgrade in a few months. My husband hadn't had an upgrade in ages, and could have got one at anytime. So when we were assigned to our new business account (keeping our own numbers), we asked if we could get some new handsets to be told that we weren't entitled to any. When I asked if I could just get upgraded, I was told I didn't have an upgrade anymore! For a start, I would have thought that when a new business account would be set up, that the customers would recieve handsets, but not only did this not happen, we both also lost our upgrades. We were told in Feb (when the a/c was set up) we may be entitled to an upgrade in a few months. When I emailed our accounts manager last week to ask if we could have an upgrade, I was told we wouldn't get one for at least 12 months! I asked her why her original email (which I kept) said to come back to her in a couple of months and she said oh sorry I didn't get that information, it was my colleague, but anyway no you can't have an upgrade but you can buy a handset from the list attached....which cost a fortuen! When I asked why we never got a new phone when account opened, that if we moved to Vodafone or Meteor they would certainly give us one, I was basically ignored and she never responded. Great service...and very tempted to move once our year is up as its a joke!

wmpdd3

Boots Chemist in Waterford today.

I had a €7.50 voucher for no.7 products. I picked out 4 bits of make up and a can of hairspray. €12, €8, €7 €9.50, €5.50. All coming to €49.00 minus my €7.50 voucher.

So I give all the items to the check out operator. SHe starts scanning them, then stops then puts them in little bundles.!!

I have no idea what she's doing, then she says, 'I'm going to do this in 2 transactions so you can get all offers'.

Am, All right.....

She puts the 3 bits of make up and hairspray in 1st trans, uses the voucher and I get 3 for 2.

Issues a new voucher and uses that voucher against the next bit of make up.

I end up paying €19.50 and €2! saving €20.

Delighted.

Messed Up Mind

I've had Boots staff do similar things for me too! They seem to be trained really well and enjoy their jobs too!

icrusader

went to kells today to the new aldi and even though they are supposed to open at 9 am it was 9.15 before they finally opened up. There were two guys standing at the staff door so i asked why they were so late opening and was silently gawked at in an unmistakeably hostile manner ( the last time i was looked at so menacingly was in paris in the 90's by several members of the paris's finest just because i was walking along the street with my friend).
i also asked another member of staff since i got no answer the first time and i got:

"just past 9 was it?...."

i looked for a complaints dept number when i got home on the aldi website but there is none, it only directs you to talk to someone at your local store.

( tried that...)

i took this from their website:


"We aim to make sure every customer enjoys shopping with us and can rely upon us to deliver consistently high standards of customer care.
That's why we have trained customer service representatives in every one of our stores who will also be happy to help deal with any queries or comments you may have."



and this:


"We like to call our staff the “fastest, friendliest people in retail”. Our intensive training programme means all our staff operate at the highest standards, all the time".

well both of these statements seem to me to be total and utter nonsense in light of my experience this morning.

Dues Bellator

icrusader wrote: »

went to kells today to the new aldi and even though they are supposed to open at 9 am it was 9.15 before they finally opened up. There were two guys standing at the staff door so i asked why they were so late opening and was silently gawked at in an unmistakeably hostile manner ( the last time i was looked at so menacingly was in paris in the 90's by several members of the paris's finest just because i was walking along the street with my friend).
i also asked another member of staff since i got no answer the first time and i got:

"just past 9 was it?...."

i looked for a complaints dept number when i got home on the aldi website but there is none, it only directs you to talk to someone at your local store.

( tried that...)

i took this from their website:


"We aim to make sure every customer enjoys shopping with us and can rely upon us to deliver consistently high standards of customer care.
That's why we have trained customer service representatives in every one of our stores who will also be happy to help deal with any queries or comments you may have."



and this:


"We like to call our staff the ?fastest, friendliest people in retail?. Our intensive training programme means all our staff operate at the highest standards, all the time".

well both of these statements seem to me to be total and utter nonsense in light of my experience this morning.

you wouldn't happen to be german would you, what a rant for a shop opening a few minutes late , i will agree that the staff are complete morons, my guess was they didn't understand a word of english

Kensington

almanu wrote: »

you wouldn't happen to be german would you, what a rant for a shop opening a few minutes late , i will agree that the staff are complete morons, my guess was they didn't understand a word of english

He has a point though. It gives off the impression that you simply couldn't give a toss about your customers if you can't be bothered to even open up the shop on time. And then to turn around and be ignorant to your customers about it? No better way to turn away customers - there's plenty of other stores out there who'd be glad of your custom at the moment.

The place I used to work, there'd be unholy murder from head office if we were even 5 minutes late opening up the store.

icrusader

almanu wrote: »

you wouldn't happen to be german would you, what a rant for a shop opening a few minutes late , i will agree that the staff are complete morons, my guess was they didn't understand a word of english

Nope not german and at the top of the page it says "rant" so i had a bit of a rant, i don't care about the 15 mins late so much as the indignant and pompous attitude of the staff this morning and all of them were irish...!

Dozen Wicked Words

O'Neills Sportswear website @ www.oneills.com have a unique idea of having loads of things available on their website that aren't actually available.

So you "enjoy" the process of putting stuff in your basket, fill in your details, pay for them, get 2 confirmation emails then wait til the following day when they tell you, they were only joking, they don't really have any of the stuff you wanted, it was just pretend shopping. Bit like when you were a child, only marginally more hi tec.

Waiting for them to confirm a refund is fun too.